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Utah author Terry Tempest Williams wants another shot at breaking into the energy exploration business.
She and her husband, Brooke, on Thursday filed a petition with the federal Interior Board of Land Appeals, challenging the Bureau of Land Management's recent cancellation of two oil and gas leases they bought following a controversial auction in February.
"The process for extracting carbon from public lands was developed during a time vastly different from the one we are living in now," Brooke Williams said. "What is needed in the 21st century is restraint and reform."
The Castle Valley couple say the agency applied a double standard to them because of their opposition to energy development on Utah's public lands.
"The BLM's decision to reject our lease bids highlights the agency's misdirected and antiquated approach to fossil fuels," said Tempest Williams, the author of several books exploring natural landscapes and their importance to human civilization and spiritual wellbeing. "This case shines a light on BLM's fidelity to the oil and gas industry while willfully ignoring the urgency — in an era of climate change — of more enlightened management of the public lands that belong to the American people."
The Williamses are among Utah's most prominent environmental activists with ancestral roots tied to the state's Mormon pioneers. After they bought the leases, they formed Tempest Exploration Co. to "develop" the leases. But months later the BLM declined to issue the leases, citing Tempest Williams' public remarks indicating she would not drill them.
"Under the Mineral Leasing Act, Terry Tempest and Brooke Williams have a legal right to have their lease bids considered on an even basis with other bidders," said Laura King, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center who filed the petition on the couple's behalf. "It is arbitrary and capricious for BLM to issue leases to oil and gas speculators for the control millions of acres of our public lands, while rejecting bids from those who would hold these lands in the name of a sustainable future."
But BLM officials defended their decision by pointing out that federal law requires a lessee to be "reasonably diligent in developing its lease." By stating that they would not drill, the Williamses gave BLM little choice but to pull back the leases.
Brian Maffly covers public lands for The Salt Lake Tribune. Maffly can be reached at bmaffly@sltrib.com or 801-257-8713. Twitter: @brianmaffly